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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29843082">Off Script</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildwoman/pseuds/wildwoman'>wildwoman</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Depression, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:34:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,114</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29843082</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildwoman/pseuds/wildwoman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There were other scenes to the breakfast script too. Draco’s least favourite was when she asked if he’d liked his coffee. He’d say yes and she’d pretend to believe him. The coffee would stay on his bedside table until the bubbles which had given way to grease would give way to a raft of white fuzz.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Off Script</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Every day had been the same for a while now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every morning she would get up with the sun, and Draco would pretend to be asleep. He would pretend to be asleep as she pulled on clothes in the dark and wrestled with her hair and looked back at him in the greyscale and sighed. Before she left she’d sneak back in and leave cups of coffee on his bedside table, and Draco would pretend to be asleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the sun permeated the room Draco would watch the dust dance. Futile attempts at tracking individual specks of dust were an excellent distraction from how the smell of coffee turned his stomach. Once upon a time, it had been his favourite. Some mornings, when she had cleaned the day before, there wasn’t much dust to watch, but that was okay. That meant it had been his turn to do the washing up last night, and there would be a reliable film of grease on the coffee that he could watch instead. It formed so slowly, so imperceptibly usurping the bubbles which just let themselves be taken. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Crema,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” she had taught him, once. They had been in Rome, just for the weekend, drinking red wine and coffee with the perfect </span>
  <em>
    <span>crema</span>
  </em>
  <span> and no grease in sight. Eventually though, his grease would shimmer and crack, and that meant it was time to get up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cracks let the steam out, Draco mused. He didn’t know if that was true. Maybe he’d find out later. It was time to get up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no steam left by the time he got up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Next he would go to the kitchen, because that was what he was meant to do. It was in the script. If it was a day that the house elves were working, breakfast would be ready. If it was their day off, the kitchen would be stiflingly quiet. On those days breakfast would be buttered toast, or sliced apples, if it was a good day. It all depended on what he could get done before the silence started to sound like the roar of being too deep underwater. The last time he had tried to push through it he had ended up smashing a plate, and then she had come home and cried. It was a special plate apparently, one her parents had brought back from Australia. Draco hadn’t realised plates could be special. He went back to bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew now though, how far he could push it, where the line was. It was so clear to him it may as well have been a brick wall. So the trick was, how much unbuttered toast could he force down before he hit it, because then all was lost. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every day she would come home and he would be sat tapping the wireless with his wand, looking for a sound that would be more bearable than the silence. He hadn’t found one yet. Then she would toe off her running shoes and tiptoe around the kitchen island as if he was a wild animal she was trying not to scare. She was being ridiculous; he knew she was there. He could stop this tapping if he wanted to, it just so happened that he didn’t. He liked how the station changed every three seconds exactly, never enough of any one thing to become stagnant. He’d be fine choosing just one station if he wanted to, it just so happened that he didn’t. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He liked when she would close her hand over his, and he would let his wand go still. He never questioned that her tiny hand could make his much bigger one do anything she wanted. He liked to watch the tendons in her hand move. The shadows they made and her tan made such pretty colours. He was too pale for shadows to look anything other than haunting. Mostly he liked it because that was her cue to say “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Let’s get you some proper breakfast!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” as if it was what she wanted to do most in the world, and not because she’d spotted his abandoned toast on the kitchen counter. Draco could still feel the burn of forcing down too much, too dry, all at once, but the piece he’d abandoned only had a couple of bites taken out of it. That didn’t seem right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was okay though, because the silence was gone now. He could sit on his barstool and watch her, and she would bustle about the too big kitchen but more importantly she would hum and sing and talk to him even if he didn’t talk back. There was always breakfast, and it was always unwaveringly healthy, because she was nothing if not sensible. She liked to give him porridge, and muesli, and horrible dark brown slabs that she claimed were bread and he claimed that if this is what they ate in Scandinavia then that is somewhere he would never go. It was reliable, that conversation. There had been more horrible bread than usual recently, and Draco wondered if she was just particularly enjoying it at the moment, or if she needed their last remaining lighthearted joke as much as he did. They used to joke without a script. Draco didn’t know why they’d stopped that, it seemed like it would probably be much more fun. The script was reliable though, he could trust the script. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were other scenes to the breakfast script too. Draco’s least favourite was when she asked if he’d liked his coffee. He’d say yes and she’d pretend to believe him. The coffee would stay on his bedside table until the bubbles which had given way to grease would give way to a raft of white fuzz. He’d been fascinated by it the first time, but she’d caught him trying to touch it and tried to teach him about all the things muggles used mould for. She seemed to think it was interesting. He disagreed. If he left it too long and there was more than just islands of white then he would just vanish the whole cup. He’d spend the day at Sotheby’s and present her with new cups by the evening, and she’d pretend to be delighted by the gift and that she didn’t know the reason behind it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’d been an article about him once, in a muggle newspaper. One of her friends had shown him, a muggleborn from the ministry whose name he couldn’t remember, but who had invited herself to lunch at their house to show him the article. It was about a mysterious collector. No one knew anything about him, but he was rumoured to have one of the worlds most extensive collections of ceramics, what with the not-so-small fortune he had spent on antique cups alone. Hermione had gasped and dropped the cup she had been holding at the time. Draco had let out a single chuckle before he had realised, and if she hadn’t already dropped the cup she would have then, because he didn't chuckle any more. Not only had she not noticed the antiques that she had stacked up in her kitchen cabinet, but the muggles had no idea that half of their treasures had been vanished by now. When she had found out the price of the cup she’d just dropped alone, she was furious. He’d fixed it with a wave of his wand. Draco was sure he was supposed to care about muggle history, but he couldn’t stop buying the cups or the script would have to be rewritten, and if there was one thing he could still give her, it was the very best money could buy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were different scripts for different days, it all depended on her. Some days she would go to work like normal, and those were the worst days. Draco would save all the little jobs for those days so that he would be able to distract himself, but somehow she would manage to come back before he’d gotten up from breakfast to do them. The mornings after those days there was always the most dust to watch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some days she was campaigning for Minister for Magic. Those days Draco would go with her. Those days she looked so alive that just by being beside her Draco thought some of it might rub off on him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His favourite days were when she was at home though. Just like he’d found the line where the silence became too much, she’d worked out, no doubt with some exacting formula, the perfect balance between happy memories and overwhelming memories. So they would reminisce, most often at home, but sometimes wandering through Diagon Alley or parts of muggle London. She would talk about when they’d first gotten together, after she’d saved his life in the heat of battle and held his hand when Voldermort had called to him. He didn’t talk about how he’d spent every moment since failing to return the favour. She would talk about the trips they’d taken. He would try not to think about how he could only repay her in money. He could manage expensive gifts and luxury trips and he could provide nothing else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d voiced that once, when he was still riding the high of being young and in love and alive. She had always been so sensible, and he had been the one to talk about feelings and read old novels and draw in the garden. He’d voiced it once, that he had nothing to give her, and she told him he was being ridiculous, and he never voiced it again. Then she’d gone on to take more and more from the whole world around her until she was head of her department, best selling author, running for minister of magic, godmother; but she never took from him, because he had nothing to give her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she reminisced, she talked about “</span>
  <em>
    <span>us</span>
  </em>
  <span>” as if anything they did together was as much him as her. Draco knew it not to be true. When he reminisced, he thought only about her, because all he did beside her was exist. He’d voiced that once as well, that all he did was exist, contributing nothing. She’d told him “</span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s all I need. All I need is you.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” but that wasn’t true, because everyone had to give something. He’d given his father everything when he was still a child, and in return his father had given him money and power. He had given his mother his love and she gave hers in return, until she was killed for it, killed trying to join him. His friends at Hogwarts had given him their loyalty, but he had given them nothing in return, and now they were not his friends. That was how it worked. You must be able to give in return. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All Draco had to give was the money and the things money would acquire. The antique cups and lavish trips he barely remembered had progressed into heirloom jewels and property around Europe. Nothing was enough though because they were never even. She had saved him, but she wouldn’t stop giving, and he could never quite catch up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The day he had brought home a unicorn foal her jaw had dropped. Then the shouting had begun. She’d never shouted before. He took the unicorn down to the woods at the bottom of the garden, and came back and let her shout, because for once she wasn’t just giving. She shouted about creature rights and she shouted about money and eventually she shouted about him. She shouted about not knowing whether he was showing off or trying to buy her somehow, as if she wasn’t already his. She shouted until the sun set and the unicorn went to sleep and it was too late for dinner. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Draco had gone to bed first that night, and she’d never come to join him. He’d waited two hours, which he knew because he’d counted, before he gave up. Then he got up, and found which of the guest bedrooms she was in. When he got into bed beside her, she only said </span>
  <em>
    <span>“You’re freezing</span>
  </em>
  <span>” and wrapped her arms around him, and he said “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes</span>
  </em>
  <span>” because he was, but neither of them cast a warming charm. Only in the dark, only existing beside her, did he say “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Hermione, do you think I should see a healer?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” There was a pause because he never talked any more, not really, not unless she talked first. Then she cried, and Draco didn’t know why. He asked eventually, and she said she was relieved, but that didn’t help, because he couldn’t remember what relieved felt like.  </span>
</p>
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